Well, presidential elections happen every four years, but deja vu is forever. Keep that in mind as you listened to President Obama's announcement say that he's seeking to extend the Bush era tax cuts for incomes of a quarter million dollars or less. 

 

I'm not proposing anything radical here. I just believe that anybody making over $250,000 a year should go back to the income tax rates we were paying under Bill Clinton. Back when our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs. The biggest budget surplus in history. And plenty of millionaires to boot. 

 

Now, if it sounds familiar to you it should. Here's Senator Obama four years ago on the campaign trail. 

 

I can make a firm pledge under my plan no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes. 

 

Well, that promise to end the Bush tax cuts except for higher earners helped sweep him into office. "Keeping Them Honest," he couldn’t fulfill it despite Democrats controlling both the House and the Senate. Republicans opposed letting any of the cuts expire. So did a number of Democrats and the process obviously dragged on. Then, the 2010 election came along, the Tea Party election, as a lot of people called it. Republicans took over the House. President Obama settled for passing a two-year extension to all the tax cuts during the lame-duck session. 

 

In exchange, he got additional jobless benefits and payroll tax cuts. But now that two-year extension is nearly up. And once again, Republicans are calling any tax increases economic poison and politically motivated. 

 

Mitt Romney didn't make any appearances today. His spokeswoman did say this, quote, "President Obama's response to even more bad economic news is a massive tax increase." She goes on, "It just proves again that the president doesn't have a clue how to get Americans working again and help the middle class." And quote, "The president's latest bad idea is to raise taxes on families, job creators and small businesses." 

 

Now "Keeping Them Honest." A lot of policy wonks are fighting over all that. The bottom line, just like last time, this may not be settled until after the election. Until then for both sides it's a campaign issue. The question is, who exactly benefits?

 

"Raw Politics" now with Democratic strategist and Obama 2012 pollster Cornell Belcher, also Republican strategist and senior Romney adviser Bay Buchanan, whose new book out is called "Bay and Her Boys," about her raising boys as a single mom. 

 

So, Cornell, Republicans say this is all about politics and the president is just trying to call them on the carpet while diverting attention from Friday's poor jobs report. Are they wrong? 

 

Yeah, I think they are wrong. I think what you see here is the president doing something what the vast majority of Americans want to do. Look, the poll after poll show that the National Journal Poll had two-thirds of Americans wanting to extend the Bush tax breaks only for those under $250,000. 

 

But by a lot of accounts, this proposal stands virtually no chance of passing Congress. Some Democrats may even vote against it. If that's the case, if it's about politics or not, why, I mean, why push it now? 

 

Well, I think it does set up a nice contrast. Look, I'm not going to sit here in Washington as a political consultant and say that, you know, politics doesn't play into what happens here in Washington. But it does set up a nice contrast. I mean, the contrast, you know, Obama sort of fighting for the 98 percent of Americans who would benefit from this tax cut. And the pivot is, you know, why do Republicans continue to sort of hold the 98 percent, hold the middle class hostage, to the wealthiest 1 or 2 percent? Particularly when, again, two-thirds of Americans want this extended only for those making under $250,000 a year. 

 

Well, Bay, what about it? I mean, Cornell just said it. You look at these polls. Most Americans do support letting tax cuts expire on the wealthiest Americans. Why not make that deal as a Republican? 

 

The key is, it is increasing taxes on a million, about a million small businesses. That's the engine that drives the economy. That's who creates jobs in this country, is small businesses. The president himself said a little over a year ago or, I think, this was even a little bit further back than then. He made it very clear that you never raise taxes on businesses in a recession. Because it's … . (What’s up?)